Brendan Wallace

Name: Brendan Wallace

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Grade: 12

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Video Games, Writing, Political Activism

Appearance: Approximately 6"1 and 170 lbs, Brendan's hair is an extremely dark red, only noticable in bright places or sunlight, otherwise resembling a dark brown. It is always curling, and wears the strain of excessive hair straighteners that never work, and Brendan resolves this by cutting it short enough to not curl noticeably, around ear length. While he was overweight as a child, due to a lifestyle of junkfood and lack of exercise, he lost most of this weight during adolescence, and used weight training and general athleticism to exercise and balance out. With this he developed larger than usual biceps and a strong stomach. His eyes are a dark hazel, and is clean shaven. He almost always refuses to brush his teeth, instead putting trace amounts of fluorine in his water, rendering his teeth yellow, but still healthy.

Brendan always wears long sleeve shirts, absent of bright colours, even in the summer, and wears dark coloured checkered pants, usually long in winter or short in the summer. Around his neck, he wears a silver locket, with a blank picture inside, and sports a hemp bracelet around his right wrist and left ankle. He wears white sneakers, hand-me-downs from his parents. He quickly caught up to his parents in foot size, and promptly surpassed them, and now wears size 12 1/2.

Biography: Brendan was born on the 7th of July, 1990, to ex-army technician Rosa and commercial pilot Raymond. While originally from the Northern Rivers, New South Wales, Australia his father was constantly called on to work overseas for various foreign airlines. This busy job meant that Brendan would always move from school to school, from house to house, and never stay long enough to make any friends. He almost never tried due to fear of rejection. He was an excellent student in Primary school, with a near-perfect photographic memory, always getting top marks in Maths and English, and always showing initiative to learn the local languages. By the time he was 10, he was fluent in Japanese, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and a few phrases in Mandarin.

When he was 4, his brother, Alex, died at the age of 2 in a car accident. As Brendan was young, he had little to no memories of his brother. His mother, Rosa, would always play his favourite songs on his birthday and the anniversary of his death.

At the age of 12, his father developed macular degeneration in both eyes, and was forced into an early retirement. Rosa finally settled her family back down in the Northern Rivers. She finally got to follow her dream of settling down in one town and owning a Cafe, which became very successful. Brendan was able to make a few select friends, and he was glad how great life was going for him. He even opened up his knowledge of the commercial and media world through the use of video games and youtube, a very supportive English teacher and classmates who were all as smart and eager to learn as he was.

Around puberty, when other friends of his were going on dates and getting together, he started experiencing feelings as well. Not just for girls, but for both genders, which made him extremely confused. Soon, however, he decided to test these feelings out. In the following years, he dated and sexually experimented with both males and females, always finding a way to keep them quiet; he felt the same way about both. From this he logically concluded that he was bisexual. He was about to come out to his friends and parents, when he coincidentally read a story in the newspaper about a gay bashing in the area. He had always been slightly aware of the attitudes towards the LGBT community in his area; heterosexuals treated them in a way that made 'not well' an understatement. He decided to keep his sexuality to himself for the time being, until he was ready for a time in which the community would be completely accepting.

After his maternal grandparents died when he was 16, Rosa decided in a change in scenery, and bought a house online in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA. They moved there in only a few short days, giving little to no chance for Brendan to say goodbye to any of his friends. Uprooted from his life, Brendan deeply resented his parents, but found no reason to rebel. He soon settled down in his new house, reminiscent of most his childhood.

Brendan became a self-proclaimed loner at Bayview, as his fear of rejection in finding friends cropped up again. Instead, he made his own life on the internet, creating a blog under the handle 'shortfuse'. He became a much darker person online, always hosting the most violent of video games and writing out disturbing fanfiction. He found that people across the internet became better friends with him than any people he met in real life. He could trust in them, and they could keep all his secrets. To keep his parents satisfied, he trained himself to lie, pretending that he was talking to his friends at school across the internet, and they never questioned him due to over a decade of complete honesty and trust.

After months of watching sensationalized American news, he became extremely irritated and cynical of the manipulation that was used by the networks. He used to see the world as perfect, and while the news was biased, it was informative. He began a few more blogs on every little thing he hated about the world, and he became popular on the internet for his six page long rants about things such as 'Animal Cruelty', 'Homelessness', and, which he wrote on a dare from a reader, 'Basketballs'.

While leaving his parents out of the loop in this, Brendan eventually realized he needed help after meeting most of his 'fans', who seemed to be even more cynical and slightly delusional. After three months of private appointments with the school counselor, mainly focusing on his social anxiety, she managed to convince him, through testing and evaluations, that he should stop his isolation. She suggested to him that he should stop venting his life and anxieties online, and instead actually find friends with similar interests. He took this advice, and signed off all of his blogs that night.

Brendan turned over a new leaf with this, and accepted his new country and home, albeit being his last few months at school. Although he started off shy, he eventually got involved in the community, although it would take many months before he would actually socially speak to someone at school, making friends with more people, although still remaining distant to popularity and 'the spotlight'.

Brendan started to date the openly gay Erik Laurin near the end of the school year, ever since prom. While he intended to say he "swung both ways", he only told his best friend, Anna Chase, that detail, and told Erik he was gay instead of fully revealing his sexuality.

Advantages: Brendan learnt through spy movies, detective shows, and video games the basics of stealth and how to control his overall noise level i.e. breathing. Brendan is extremely creative in use of mechanics, and also learnt through the same detective movies and shows how to lie extremely well.

Disadvantages: While having lost his extra weight in adolescence, Brendan is still unfit, and can only run moderate distances before getting tired, making him easy pickings in a chase or if he is caught in a dangerous place. He can often lose balance, and often trips over things he sees due to carelessness. Because of his social anxiety, he is extremely uneasy around large groups of people. If someone were to challenge his views, he could be easily set off. Under stress or lack of sleep, he becomes jumpy and paranoid, and lashes out at people, such as when someone makes a joke and Brendan sees it as serious.

Designated Number: Male student no. 42

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Designated Weapon: Blow-Up Doll

Conclusion: Huh... well now I'm not sure whether or not Mr. Wallace would have preferred a male doll. Ah well, he'll take what he's given, and what he's given says that even with his ability at keeping quiet, it's just a matter of time for B042!

'The above biography is as written by Incrobe. Edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Inky

Kills: Steven Hunt

Killed By: N/A, Escaped

Collected Weapons: Blow-Up Doll (assigned weapon), Taurus Raging Bull (from Chris Davidson, to Stacy Hart), Beretta PX4 Storm Pistol 9mm (from Rose Codreanu, to Liz Polanski), Jericho 941F (.45 ACP) (from Liz Polanski, to Peter Siu), S&W 659 (9mm) (from Carla Conners, to Kitty Gittschall)

Allies: Örn "Dutchy" Ayers, Sarah Xu, Roland Hayes, Raymond Dawson, Sarah Tan, Neill Robertson, Robert Barron, Stacy Hart, Erik Laurin, Harun Kemal, Rashid Hassan, Saul Fetteralf, Joss Joiner, Liz Polanski, Mirabelle Nesa, Garrett Hunter, Jeremy Franco, Jacquard Broughten (saved his life, so technically), Peter Siu

Enemies: Clio Gabriella, Aislyn McCreery, Madeleine Smith, Peter Siu, Kitty Gittschall

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:

Other/Trivia

 * Brendan is, as admitted by his handler, a blatant self-insert.
 * While Brendan was originally going to be another internet nerd in the game, his handler found dislike for that part of his personality, so retconned it away in a memories thread.

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Brendan, in chronological order

The Past:
 * Please Stand By
 * Quite a Wedding
 * Activists and Commie Mutant Traitors Unite

Pre-Game
 * Food For Thought
 * Ego Sum Volo Futurus
 * Love Means What it Means
 * Light Up the Night

V4 Post-Game:
 * Testing Faith....1...2..3
 * False Awakening
 * D-Day
 * Filling prescriptions
 * Pearl and Destiny
 * Gypsy Rap
 * That's a bout. Salute. Shake hands.
 * Birdland
 * The Beggar King
 * The Gully
 * Peripeteia
 * Tabula Rasa
 * The Strength to Stand Again
 * Sacrifice Sheep To GOD!
 * The Cavalry Arrives
 * The Personal Heights
 * Have It Your Way
 * V4 Epilogue: Peace Accords
 * Brace, Brace

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Brendan Wallace. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''


 * I think the main problems with Brendan were a) I wanted to do way too much at once when I wasn't nearly capable enough of a writer to even think of doing so, b) I really didn't know what I wanted to do, and c) It was consistently hard keeping him in character when he's, essentially, me. I wouldn't do a SI again as a first try, or if I could, I'd go back and change everythign that was Brendan Wallace into something less humiliating and cringe-worthy. I enjoyed writing him, but I doubt anyone enjoyed reading him. - Inky
 * Brendan was interesting in that he moved around a lot during the game, and encountered a truly staggering variety of characters. I think, though, that some of what Inky says above goes a long way towards explaining some of the persistent issues that come with following Brendan. Basically, the problem is Brendan himself feels unsure about what he wants to do, so he hops around from area to area and plot to plot. The reason this is an issue is taht in doing so he often abandons friends and companions on a loose whim. When faced with tough situations, Brendan often panics and bails out, but he never really holds himself that accountable for these actions. I mean, he feels bad, but then the next time stuff gets tough he does it again.

In this way, I do think Brendan is a pretty consistent character, and an interesting one. He's not much of a hero, though he often thinks of himself as one and tries to be. In his mind, he's very much the protagonist, kind of like a non-crazy Jimmy Brennan. While Brendan often is reflective, his introspection is colored by his need to justify most of what he does to himself.

The two big criticisms I have of Brendan are in totally different veins. The first is just a writing thing. Brendan's posts are often full of formatting experiments, really thick metaphor, and the like. I've always thought Inky's strongest writing was his most straightforward stuff, and Brendan's the opposite. Often, the layers of odd stuff that don't really play into the narrative serve to obfuscate the meaning. The other thing is a story issue, and that's that Brendan doesn't really change much as a person. Throughout his post-game (which is nicely developed; really great to see a rescued kid get good screen time) he's still justifying himself and sort of caught up in the same lines of thinking, and at the very end he decides to become a better person by basically putting everything behind him again. It's the same action he's taken every time he's been stuck or stressed, and that makes me sort of skeptical that it will actually work, but it comes off as a big positive moment. I guess it just comes off oddly to me given Brendan's history. - MurderWeasel